Venn - Dating App

Summary

I was hired as the UX Designer for the dating app Venn (previously called Curentt). When I entered my role, there were a few challenges. First, the dating app space is extremely saturated and there are tons of apps that rely on one feature to set them apart. How do we create an app that actually requires a change in behavior, as Tinder created by introducing swiping and Bumble iterated on by having women make the first move? Second, once we figured that out, I had to translate it to an actual product from scratch.

Our solution to these problems were to build an app that was social and included other people in the dating process. Most apps, like Tinder, allow users to send a profile to someone via a text message but no other apps are currently keeping the recommendation process native to the app. Venn uniquely allows users to add friends within the app, directly recommend where the profiles will show up in the app, and changes the behavior of dating apps to be more like the real world where you set your friends up. This is why we used more of a timeline look with profiles instead of one profile at a time. If a user isn't interested in a profile, they can keep scrolling and recommend to a friend later instead of making a yes or no decision now like Tinder forces. We translated this to the app by drawing inspiration from other dating and social apps, testing with users of other dating apps, and iterating changes.

As the UX Designer, I conducted competitor research, interviewed users of other dating apps, created a style guide, generated user flows, created personas based on those research findings and interviews, identified user scenarios, created and user tested our prototypes, iterated on findings, designed the final product (UX/UI), and wrote copy.